Too Far Away – Zu Weit Away (2019)

Directed by: Sarah Winkenstette | 89 minutes | family | Actors: Yoran Leicher, Sobhi Awad, Anna König, Andreas Nickl, Anna Böttcher, Petra Nadolny, Tobias Schäfer, Julia Schmitt, Mohamed Achour, Bilal Bahadir, Soufjan Ibrahim, Nino Porzio, Sabine Vitua

The German family film ‘Te ver weg’ (‘Zu weit weg’, 2019) is about Ben. He is twelve and is one of the best strikers in his football club. Unfortunately, the first game in which we see his team win gloriously is the last. Not just from the season, but from his time at his club. Ben’s family has to move from Niederkirchbach, because his village will soon have to make way for a lignite mine. Although Ben regrets that he has to leave his friends behind, he sees the move positively. After all, their new hometown Düren also has a football club and they have artificial grass there. Ben’s sister Isa sees it more gloomy.

Ben’s expectations turn out to be too rosy. At his new school, he soon becomes the laughing stock of the class. His new football coach is not really impressed by his claim that he is a striker. He first has to prove himself as a defender, but in practice it means that he spends a lot of time on the reserve bench. But when another new student enters his class – Syrian refugee Tariq, who already speaks excellent German – Ben is distracted. He takes tentative steps to befriend the traumatized boy and gradually learns what it’s like to be a true friend to someone.

‘Too Far Away’ cleverly interweaves two disparate lives and problems that children may encounter. Tariq and Ben’s lives have similarities, but are miles apart at the same time. Ben shows Tariq what it’s like to have to leave your village, but the cause – lignite mining – is of course not comparable to the horrors Tariq has had to face. Still, both boys find support in each other, both on and off the football field. They help each other cope with setbacks and cope with the changes in their lives. This special friendship forms the beating heart of the film.

Another plus is the positive way in which the brother-sister relationship is portrayed. Unlike many movies, the older sister here isn’t the bitch who ruins everything for the main character, but rather an ally. Sarah Winkenstette wanted to incorporate the universal feeling of losing something familiar, with something new taking its place (which she herself recognizes from her childhood – her parental home was demolished when she was sixteen) in her film and she succeeded. She has found the right tone to tell this story. It helps that the two young protagonists are well attuned to each other and come across as natural. Sobhi Awad as Tariq is particularly impressive, because he does not have many dialogues and yet manages to convey his feelings through expressions and body language.

What is even more striking about ‘Too far away’ are the shots in the lignite mines: impressive if you have not seen such images before (and that will often be the case with the target group). “Too Far Away” isn’t very in-depth, but for kids, the info about Tariq’s background is most likely enough to pique their curiosity. Avoiding too many clichés does the film good; at certain points the film is definitely not predictable.